Manuel Diaz-Granados

You absolutely need to hear the story of Manuel Diaz-Granados – the guy’s a straight-up tech hustler and a legit innovator. He’s part of YC’s S23 batch, which is no small feat, right? But what’s really cool is his process – it’s all about jumping into the deep end, crushing it, then building shit that actually changes the game.

So, Manuel started off with serious creds in electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon – that’s top-tier. He’s not just geeky; he’s a builder. He’s worked on some pretty heavy projects before launching his own thing. At Rokt, a Series D ad tech company, he was deep in the machine learning trenches, optimizing over $100 million in ad traffic. That’s no joke – he was on the front lines making sure those ads actually hit the right people, using AI to make everything smarter and faster.

Then he jumped to Tripod AI, where he processed 500+ images a second with 20+ ML models – think about that scale. Big clients like Yahoo, Verizon, Flickr – the real deal. This proves he’s all about building stuff that actually works at scale, under real pressure.

Fast forward, Manuel co-founded Lysto AI, and that’s where he’s really making waves. Lysto is a YC-backed startup based in NYC, and it’s all about using AI to turbocharge CRM automation. Basically, they make it so that teams don’t have to waste hours updating customer data – Lysto pulls info from emails, messages, calls, even product analytics, and keeps everything fresh, so teams can engage customers with full context. It’s the future of sales and marketing ops, no cap. And given his background, it’s clear he’s all about using AI to solve real-world problems, not just making tech for tech’s sake.

What does this tell me about him? Man, he’s driven by the hustle to make things smarter and more fast. He’s not content with just knowing stuff; he wants to build tools that actually make a difference. His past shows a guy who’s always jumped into complex problems, crushed them at scale, and then used that experience to create something new. Starting Lysto isn’t just some random move – it’s a natural progression of his passion for AI, automation, and making business faster and smarter.

Bottom line? Manuel’s a total tech builder, someone who’s proven he can handle big, messy problems and turn them into elegant solutions. He’s not just riding the wave of AI hype – he’s creating real shit that helps teams work better. That’s why he’s important. He’s the guy who’s not afraid to jump in, learn everything, and then build the future.